tea for three
by smileyfacebabe
Summary: Someone rang the bell. He expected a nosy neighbor, there to pester him for more bits of his tale, because it couldn't be the children, they never used the bell. But it wasn't. It was a dwarf he knew and a dwarf he didn't. But it wasn't hard to recognize her; she had given her son's her eyes and shared her nose with her brother. (Post-BoFA oneshot)


Note: In the theaters, I got really emotional about the ending scene before the Shire. And so when I saw a gifset about it today I decided to write the idea I had a little while back. And tada! Took me like way longer than I wanted, but w/e. Enjoy C:

Dedication: To my boo, who I now have heard be EXCEEDINGLY BRITISH 3

Disclaimer: The usual; don't own jiggly, not even a jigglypuff.

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><p>It was nearly four, the spring sunshine coming in steadily through the windows, and Bilbo was just about to put on the kettle for tea. The tea cakes were due out of the oven soon, more of them baking in there than he could eat over the course of the day because sometimes he lost track of his own thoughts while baking his mother's recipes and too much flour needed too many other ingredients to balance them out. He figured what he didn't eat he could take to the neighbors, though the hills knew they still whispered behind his back every time he walked out his front door. Some things just couldn't be fixed, it seemed, not even with a year spent back inside his own home; the neighbors were probably going to whisper about his abrupt disappearance and reappearance until the day he truly died and they were all given the chance to get their grubby little hands on his things.<p>

Bilbo jolted to a stop, blinking down at the stove top. Hobbits didn't have little hands, not to them; they hands just the right size for hobbits. And yet…

He shook his head forcefully, trying to jar the thoughts from his head. Just because dwarves had abnormally large hands did not mean his hands, or any of his kin's hands, were small. It didn't. Hobbits had hobbit hands and dwarves had dwarf hands and-

The water he had been getting from the sink into the kettle poured over the top and splashed onto his hands. He jumped, started, water droplets flying through the air, and with a hasty motion turned the faucet off.

"Oh dear," Bilbo said, thoughts slowing from the swirl they had taken inside his head. It always felt like he was back in that blasted barrel whenever his mind wandered like that, clutching for dear life and feeling so weighed down, heart racing, hearing going sideways as voices shouted in the distance. The little-

The hobbit slumped against the sink's head and dropped his head onto his forearms, the kettle dropping into the sink's basin as he let it go. He stayed like that for a few seconds, breathing in and out through his nose, before he straightened and turned to grab a cloth to dry his hands. Once his hands were dry he rolled up his sleeves some more, rolled his head to the left and then the right, and reached for the kettle again.

That was when someone rang his bell. He jolted again, fingers flinching away from the wet kettle, before sighing explosively. He was more cross at his own behavior than whoever it was at his front door, so he tried to curb the barbs he felt growing on his tongue as he tossed the cloth at the table and marched through the hall to the front door. He didn't bother peeking out the window, figuring it was another gossiping neighbor coming by for tea, here to see if there was any more of his tale to pull from him. He hoped it wasn't Lobelia, still cross about the way he'd snatched his spoons back. It couldn't have been the children from across the river, here for cakes and tales of trolls, since they always pounded their little fists upon the doors and shouted at the tops of their lungs.

Sometimes those children lisped his name in an odd, familiar way, and Bilbo was forced to pause in the hallway and close his eyes and breathe. But there were no shouting children pounding on his door, just the patient silence of whoever was on the other side of the wood. Still Bilbo breathed, fingers restless at his side, barbs sharp on his tongue in case in was his wretched greedy cousin here after his silver once more.

But it wasn't.

"Oh," Bilbo said, deflating, feeling winded and small. He craned his head up at the broad figure in front of his door, his chest constricting like spider-silk was cocooned around his heart.

"Oh," Dwalin repeated on the other side, something fond about the gruff scratch of his voice. "Is that all you've got to say? Still rather poor about inviting people into your home, aren't you?"

Bilbo pursed his lips and tried to hold onto even one of his barbed retorts, but they all fled as emotion filled him from the tips of his toes to the ends of his curls. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from tearing up, planting his hands on his hips to look stern.

"I told you not to knock," Bilbo scolded. His voice didn't crack, but his breath did catch when he realized there was not one, but two dwarves on his doorstep. He had never met the second one, tall and dark haired, but he knew her name even so.

"And I didn't knock," Dwalin retorted, pressing forward. Bilbo did not stagger back, but he did step, as light on his feet as he had been in the palace at Mirkwood. "I rang your bell, hobbit, or have you aged so much in a year that you cannot tell the difference."

Bilbo tried not to stare at the woman who followed Dwalin into his home, which was made easier by the banter. He puffed his cheeks out at the remark, tempted to blow a raspberry at the warrior but too embarrassed by the new company to bother.

"Funny remark for a man older than my home," Bilbo sniped back. Dwalin's laughter was a small rumble he almost missed, especially since the woman beside his former companion took that moment to clear her throat, hood falling from atop her head to rest upon her shoulders.

"So this is the burglar," the Lady Dis said. She had the same commanding tone her brother had possessed upon his first, and only, trip into the hobbit hole. She gazed upon his walls with the same sort of expression as well, which Bilbo remembered with an oddly fond twinge.

"And you are Lady Dis," Bilbo answered, bowing his head and trying his best not offend the lady as he rose. She pursed her lips, her beard longer and fuller than her brother's had been, and said nothing more. Bilbo wanted to roll his eyes at the familiar behavior, but he resisted the urge, turning instead to lead them back to the kitchen, where the table was mostly free of books and clutter.

"At least you remembered tea time," Bilbo muttered to Dwalin as he passed. The battle scarred dwarf clasped him on the shoulder, the jolt of which traveled all the way down his bones and almost knocked out his knees. Bilbo tried to ignore how he had missed that particular sensation, instead busying himself with pouring out that particular kettle, drying it, and then finding its larger counterpart so that he could make tea for everyone. When he pulled the cakes from the stove the number suddenly didn't seem like too many and he smiled to himself absently as he dropped them on the counter to cool.

"Don't even think about it," he scolded without looking. "You'll burn your fingers."

"Bah," Dwalin denied. "Like a dwarf could take such damage from a wee little cake."

But the dwarf resettled upon his seat, elbows on the table, and Bilbo bit his tongue on a grin when there were no more protests. He took out his largest tea cups, washed them for good measure, and as he did so he asked about the mountain and the dwarf's journey.

"T'was cold," Dwalin snorted, "and rather boring. No orcs, no goblins, no mad running for my life. Didn't quite like it myself."

"At least there was no mad wizard snapping at you in the rain," Bilbo argued. Which was rather unfair to their tall wizened friend, because he hadn't snapped at Bilbo in the rain at all on the trip back to the Shire, but it brought a laugh out of his friend and that was more than enough excuse.

"You've got yourself a point, lad," Dwalin agreed. "I'll take a quiet boring trip over one with a wizard any day."

Lady Dis seemed disinclined to add into the conversation about her own trip so far, so Bilbo did not pry. He merely placed their cups in front of them, piled his largest plate four high with cakes, and then seated himself across from the dwarves. He talked of his journey home as he moved, ending with the part where he returned home to find his kin auctioning off his things just as the kettle whistled upon the stove.

"What," Dwalin roared, standing up so abruptly that the table jostled several inches and cakes toppled from their pile upon the plate to land against the wood. The Lady Dis did not flinch, but Bilbo did, now unused to the way dwarves raised their voices without warning.

"Oh, sit down," Bilbo said, before Dwalin could do something silly like storm out of his home and lay siege upon the Shire. "I arrived just in time to stop the auction, so no worries. Even got all my spoons back from Lobelia, though I think she may have nicked one of the dented ladles when I wasn't looking. But I don't use ladles that often, so it doesn't matter much."

"It- doesn't matter much- you little-"

Dwalin was speechless with rage, hands flat against the table, and Bilbo moved past him with a roll of his eyes.

"You act as if I should have drawn my blade right there and then," he scoffed. Dwalin made a face like that was the exact thing he expected and Bilbo bit his tongue on a laugh, feeling his chest constrict, this time with warmth.

"Well, that's well and good for a dwarf," the hobbit said, "but hobbits aren't known for drawing swords to settle arguments!"

"You should have anyway," Dwalin muttered, sounding like a sullen child. Bilbo poured tea into his cup with one hand while he scooped up the spilled cakes with his other hand and haphazardly stacked them back atop the plate. Dwalin took them off the plate almost as fast as he could stack them, angrily shoving them into his mouth, crumbs trickling down his beard as he chewed. He was still glaring as Bilbo poured tea for Lady Dis and then himself, but Bilbo just rolled his eyes again and sat down, pulling the plate closer to him so he could eat the cakes as well.

"I used the contract as proof of my person," he commented a few minutes later, when Dwalin seemed disinclined to stop his sulking. "Once they saw my signature they dispersed out of my yard and left me be, but I spent the next couple of days rearranging my furniture to get it back to the way it had been."

Dwalin made more disgruntled noises, but something flashed across Lady Dis' face, something that Bilbo almost recognized. He swallowed back the question that crept up there, on what she thought he should have done, reaching for another cake as Dwalin seemed to calm down a bit.

"To think you rushed out your front door to help us save our home and almost ended up losing yours."

"And now we both have our homes," Bilbo said, pointedly placing his tea cup a little too loudly against the wood. "Even if they both are a little different than they were before."

Dwalin almost smiled at him, shoulders dropping a little as he sighed. "Aye," he said, "I guess we do, don't we?"

Tired of this sad, bittersweet mood Bilbo leapt into a slightly exaggerated story about the children in the Shire and how the week before they had staged a mock battle beside the river and how one of the little children had fallen in. Luckily a Brandybuck had been nearby to fish them out before anything terrible could happen, but the mothers had come to Bilbo's door with quite a lot to say about his tales of barrel riding down a river and how it had imprinted all wrong on the children. Dwalin laughed, gruff and shaking, the way that the mountain had been shifting underfoot, and Bilbo forgot for a minute that Lady Dis was there, curling down to lean his elbows against the table top as he grinned crookedly back.

"They keep trying to find trolls in the woods," Bilbo added, reaching for one of the cakes. He stole it a split second before Dwalin could, leaving the dwarf's larger scarred ones lingering in the air awkwardly before he growled and grabbed another, smaller cake.

"Not that they're going to find any, of course, but that got me another talk… Gotten a lot of talking to since I've been back," Bilbo mused, grinning slightly. "Feels like I'm thirty-two again."

"Thirty-two," Dwalin said, combing his hand down his beard and brushing most of the crumbs onto the floor. "Hobbits are such wee creatures, in both size and age."

"We are the proper size," Bilbo said indignantly, "and the proper age! It's not my fault you dwarves are so broad and old, honestly, must we have this conversation again?" Dwalin opened his mouth, probably to argue back, as he had the five other times they had run through this same conversation on the journey to the mountain. Bilbo searched for a topic to distract the dwarf with, grabbing at the first thing he thought of and blurted it out.

"Why didn't you visit on your way to the Blue Mountains?"

The click of his teeth knocking together as he tried to bite his words short was loud in the silence that followed. Bilbo could feel Lady Dis looking at him, just as he could feel the burn on his ears as embarrassment seared through him. He hadn't mean to bring that up, but to reach the Blue Mountains Dwalin would have passed the Shire and yet he hadn't visited…

"I did come by," Dwalin admitted. His voice was muted, as it had been in the days following the battle, and the hobbit's vision blurred with tears against his will. He clenched his jaw, picked his head up to look at the bald, battle scar dwarf across from him. "It was a cloudy day and there were children running about the streets, brandishing sticks like swords and crowing that they were going to hunt down a dragon themselves. But when I turned the corner and saw your home, there was a woman in your yard in an unfortunate hat, engaging you in a shouting match."

"Lobelia," Bilbo said, swallowing. "April, wasn't it? She wanted to shout at me for-"

He cut off abruptly, throat tight. April had been a rough month, with too much rain and time inside him home, without anyone to distract him. He had rearranged his bookshelves three times, written seven different letters that he never sent, and on one of the few rainless days he had attempted to go to market only to be stopped by his cousin at the gate.

That had been the only time he had thought about dragging his blade out from the chest he had dropped it in. Not to hurt her just to scare her, to force her back into her own home and make sure she would never trespass upon his land again.

"How dare you," she had snapped, stomping her foot upon the ground. Her hat had been truly unfortunately, something he was sure the hat maker had let their son make as a joke, the wrong shade of red for her complexion, with an odd green ribbon that trailed behind her as she paced his yard.

"How dare you disgrace your father this way, running off with dwarves; you're not a proper hobbit at all! Skinny and scarred, he'd have turned you out to live across the river in a heartbeat!"

She hadn't been right, of course. His father had loved his mother in all his Tookishness, would have never have turned him out even for a second, even if he had run off with twice as many dwarves for trice as many months.. But nonetheless the words had stung, leaving his shaking, hands curled into fists as everything he had been taught around campfires across the journey about brawling coming to mind. Bofur had always told him to grab something to swing with, a chair if he could manage it, and that thought had seemed so tempting, her face as red as her hat.

"You should have clobbered her," Dwalin growled. Bilbo laughed, short and unkind, lips curling into a smile more suited to the warrior than he.

"I thought about it," he admitted. "But in the end she wasn't worth the effort."

In the end he had snapped something about the dwarves being more favorable company than she, so would she kindly remove herself from him yard so that he could continue his life in peace. She had stormed back the way she had come, livid with him, but he hadn't cared, slamming the door shut behind his as he went back inside his home.

"You should have come by anyway," Bilbo said, once his chest had stopped feeling like a battered old war shield.

Dwalin sighed and though he eyed the cakes, he took no more. His tea cup was empty too, as was Lady Dis'. Bilbo wanted to refill them, but he knew the feeling of a visitor who was making to leave and his guests, though they had barely been there an hour, were nearly ready to leave.

"I thought it better not to bother you that day," he said. He paused then and Bilbo knew what was coming, biting down on his tongue to keep him from blurting out the request that they stay, please, stay for the night. He'd take them to the Green Dragon and make them breakfast and maybe he wouldn't feel so empty inside. But Dwalin continued and Bilbo let him, smiling without mirth as he met his friend's eyes.

"And we must bother you no more, lad."

"You're not a bother," Bilbo insisted, tapping his fingers against the table top. "But I understand if you must go, you must go. Would you like any sweets for the road?"

That perked Dwalin up, though he tried to hide it. "If you insist," the dwarf said, which made Lady Dis' lips twitch in the first outward show of pleasure Bilbo had seen. Bilbo laughed softly, getting up from the table and not caring if his chair scraped upon the ground, going to fetch a bag. He raided his pantry for all the little snack foods he could find, not caring that he would need to go to the market tomorrow to replenish everything. When he returned the pair of dwarves were beside his front door, straightening their cloaks and muttering between themselves in their throaty foreign language. Both dwarves glanced at him, eyes dark like the stone they were said to be made from.

"Here you go," Bilbo said, handing the bag off to Dwalin, go took it without a pause. Then the hobbit opened the front door and lead them out onto his lawn, enjoying the sound of their boots following along behind him. It was a sound he had not realized he had missed, their noisy clomping boots, all metal and leather and sound. The steps were muffled by the grass, but he opened the gate and lead them out onto the dirt, where they stood, shoulder to shoulder, staring at him as if they were waiting.

"I wish you a safe journey," Bilbo said, voice a little rougher than he liked. It was being at the base of that damned mountain all over again. "And may you enjoy your life in the mountain when you arrive."

"Thank you, Burglar," Lady Dis said and the look in her eye was too familiar, the same as her brother's had been after the escapade with the burning trees and cliff side terror and Eagle rescue. Like she was surprised and pleased and settling different inside her own bones, a different being than the one who had come through his front door.

"It was my pleasure, my lady," Bilbo said, bowing a little again. He gave her his best smile, but she shook her head and the expression fell.

"No, hobbit," the lady dwarf said. "Dwalin told me how you sat at my brother's side as he passed from this world into the realm of Aule," she explained, "and that is why I am thanking you."

"I- I just-"

Bilbo could not speak or breathe or fathom what he should have been saying. He could only blink, chest constricting again with that dreaded spider-silk, until finally it all became too much.

"My lady," he said, because his mother raised him to be polite to a fault, "I was at his side, but I was too late. And your sons, I could not find them in time. You have no reason to thank me because-"

"All men fall, Burglar," the Lady Dis cut in quietly. "Whether at war or home in their beds, all men fall one day. I am just honored to know that you fought for my sons and were friend to my brother."

Bilbo did his best not to wheeze as if he'd been struck. He cleared his throat, fingers curling into little fists as he had when facing the orcs, when facing the dragons, when facing the prospect of three lives ended so abruptly, their bodies tucked into the stone of the mountain they had dreamed of for so long.

"And I am honored to have been given the chance to fight for your sons and be friend to your brother," he answered. His voice was like a squashed frog, croaking out from between his teeth. He cleared his throat, eyes drifting from hers to something over her shoulder, something that he could just barely see from the path.

"He would have been a worthy king," Bilbo managed out, after a moment. The Lady Dis laughed, a sound lacking in warmth, and the corners of her mouth twitched just barely toward the sky.

"You are a kind burglar, if a strange one," she commented. She extended her hand, her fingers work rough with a single blue gem upon an old silver ring glinting in the sunlight. Bilbo nodded to himself as he reached out to grasp her forearm, which he knew must have surprised her. Men and hobbit s shook hands, but dwarves grasped forearms, and when he curled his fingers as far as he could around her sleeve she smiled for the first proper time.

Bilbo could see her sons in that smile, small though it was. He could also see her brother as well, as clear as if he had been just over his shoulder, tall and imposing, dark hair streaked with grey, eyes soft as a smile tugged his lips apart to show his teeth. He shook and he breathed and he pushed through the emotions rising in him, Dwalin reaching out to clasp his shoulder as the lady dwarf released him.

"If you need us, send a letter," Dwalin said, shaking him a little bit. Bilbo tried to scoff at him, swatting sluggishly at the hand still upon his shoulder, and the warrior laughed as he released him.

"Same to you," Bilbo insisted, finding his voice once more. "If you ever need a gardener or a- a grocer…"

Crinkles appeared in the corners of Dwalin's eyes as he laughed, reaching out to clasp arms with Bilbo. Then he leaned forward, rough and quick, knocking their foreheads together in a more familiar greeting. Bilbo felt tears building up in his eyes, stinging at the corners like little cuts, and he took a deep shaking breath as he let loose a little tiny laugh as well. Grief was a strong emotion, but one you could share and it helped, somewhat, to have Dwalin there with crows' feet in the corners of his eyes and sweet crumbs still trapped within his beard.

Dwalin turned to leave, shoulders rolling in the way they used to whenever they were faced with leagues and leagues before the next pause, but the Lady Dis did not move. She was twisted around, looking back at Bilbo's yard. He rose on his toes, trying to see what she was so focused on, but before he could she was turning again, facing him, bending a little to look him in the eye.

"I like your tree, Burglar," she said. "May it grow strong and tall, to protect your home from the elements."

"Oh," Bilbo said, but his voice was small and his eyes stung and he couldn't breathe, making the Lady Dis blink in confusion at his display of emotion. "Thank you," he continued awkwardly, nodding his head along as he reached up to fidget with the pockets of his vest. They were empty, as they had been for over a year, but it was a habit he didn't think was going to leave him anytime soon. Habits, like grief, lingered longer than expected.

Some things just couldn't be fixed, Bilbo thought, watching as Dwalin herded the dwarven princess up the path. She swatted at him, grumbled something in their rough language, her face contorted into a confused frown, and Dwalin muttered back, hands gesturing in familiar paths.

However trees could grow from little acorns if they were cared for right and dwarves could be taught the rules of tea time. So maybe some things could be mended, if not fixed completely. They just needed time and, if he was lucky, someone to share his tea and cakes with.

Bilbo laughed to himself quietly, ducking his head as a few tears leaked down his cheeks. He wiped at them hastily, not particularly caring if the neighbors saw, and made his way back through his yard to his still open front door.

"Buggering dwarves; don't know how to close a door behind themselves," he muttered, rolling his eyes fondly. He cast a glance up the hill, where he had planted the acorn once his house had been set to rights, his smile growing at the sight of the little twigged spring poking crookedly out of the ground. Then he went inside, closing the door softly behind him, to sweep the crumbs off his floor and wash the dirt from the tea cups' handles, plans of his trip to market the next day already on his mind.


End file.
